If you're ready to start a career as a chemical engineer, there are three schools in New Mexico that can educate you. Two schools award Associate's degrees. All three schools have Bachelor's, Master's, and doctoral programs. The average cost of tuition in New Mexico is $9,100 per semester.

Like most other engineering programs, chemical engineering is heavily based in science and math. In fact, it relies more on chemistry than most engineering degrees! As a result, you may have to take prerequisite courses before starting your engineering program. Commonly required courses include Chemistry, Physics, and Calculus. You may also need to take a chemistry safety course prior to taking any engineering lab courses; your experiments may involve dangerous chemicals, so you must follow stringent rules to protect yourself.

Once you start your engineering courses, you can plan on spending four years in school to earn a Bachelor's degree. This degree requires the completion of 120 credits in courses like Principles of Chemical Engineering, Chemical Reaction Engineering, and Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics. Most courses have lab requirements, so you may have to spend some of your free time conducting experiments in the engineering lab.

To get a good picture of how much school costs in New Mexico, you can look at the range of tuition rates and financial aid opportunities. Most schools in New Mexico are fairly affordable, and tuition rates are very similar. At the University of New Mexico, tuition is $3,200 per semester for residents and $10,300 per semester for non-residents. At New Mexico State University, tuition is $6,041 per year for residents and $19,068 per year for non-residents.

As a chemical engineer, you may be able to earn a very lucrative salary. O*Net reports that the average salary for a New Mexico chemical engineer is $95,900 per year. There are several ways to boost your earning potential, including taking continuing education courses and creating a solid professional network. You can tackle both of these goals by joining the New Mexico Society of Professional Engineers.